Bartha Ildikó, Bencze Mátyás: ‘Exhausting’ the judiciary - a governmental strategy to control adjudication

The aim of this paper is to provide as hard social science evidence as possible on the detrimental effect of a new-type autocracy on judicial independence and decision-making autonomy. First, we focus on the subtle governmental strategy of the Hungarian government that has been applied to influence the adjudicative practice of courts. Using statistical and content analysis methods, we examine the criticism and expectations expressed by the government towards court decisions and the responses of court leaders and representatives of peer organizations to them. The following section presents the changes in judicial practice in two fields of adjudication (the number of constitutional reviews and the number of initiations of preliminary ruling procedures, both initiated by judges) through which judicial independence from the government is measurable. The conclusion is that the constant and relentless pressure on the courts, while far from direct repression or intimidation, may have impacted judicial practice, even if it has not completely eliminated judicial autonomy.

Felkért opponensek: 

Fleck Zoltán (ELTE ÁJK), Kovács András (Kúria), Sólyom Péter (HUN-REN TK JTI) 

Műhelyvita nyelve: magyar

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